The paper this week was set by Ethel Rodin.

A very decent average aggregate score of 70.4 encompassing a surprisingly wide range of match aggregates from the Prodigals/Bards 80 points, to the History Men/TMTCH 54 points.  As to the enjoyment factor most of you seemed to like most of it.  Amongst my own Opsimaths teammates Ethel papers have a reputation for austerity and learnedness with not always too much humour, but this offering was full of smiles.  Talking to Clare, our newest recruit who works on University Challenge, she felt there was plenty in this paper that would have passed muster as UC fodder.

This week I was the Opsimaths' bench player merely observing.  I was staggered at how long it took both teams to latch onto the theme in Round 3 ("Offiah?  What on earth could that be linked to?").  The first answer of that round concerned T-Rex's hit and that had given the theme away to me.  In contrast to the 'declared theme' rounds of last week there were plenty of 'hidden theme' rounds this week and that brought a smile to Gary Donely's face.  The smile on my face has come from a week in which we've celebrated the 100th Albert Club Monthly quiz on Monday (see Ivor's comments above) and then provided me with a featuring role as a WithQuiz answer on the Wednesday!

Let's see what others thought....

From the Red Ivor (who strenuously denies any dalliance with Mr Sassoon in his past life) passes judgement....

"Tim was QM tonight and reports that the question paper was indeed a challenge for those with optical deficiencies (that is all the Historymen now).  The 'Two people with a connecting central name' round must take the record for the longest set of questions ever.  It must be on a par with the record Wimbledon Singles game - and we assume the person typing it out was the same as the setter otherwise there might have been a bit of editing.  But I must not pour coals on the heads of the setters; it is a thankless task in this league and all parents love their own children even if a bit on the ugly ticket.  Roddy turned up for the post match analysis and was able to reveal the missing connection in Round 7 - after which he had to make a hasty retreat before there was a riot.

QotW?  I quite liked the one about Herpesvirus-4 (since I cannot imagine Epstein-Barr virus ever turning up in any other quiz ever again)."

From the Turnpike Damian's assessment from the losing camp....

"We thought tonight's paper was a well-crafted affair with plenty of general knowledge on offer and lots of hidden themes to keep us guessing.  In all fairness we managed to work out most of them although it didn't guarantee that we would always find the right answer.

Round of the week: Roisin nominated Round 4, the linked pairs and we all agreed.

Most amusing query of the week: The Charas had all assumed that question 4 of the themed Round 3 referred to Dunkin Dönitzer Martin.  When we examined the paper at the conclusion of proceedings, we were taken aback to find that this was not the case and that the surname was capitalised instead.  Scratching our collective bones, we nominated Roisin to approach Roddy and demand to know how on Earth 'Offiah' fitted into the theme!  Yes, it was that kind of night, and probably sums up our overall performance.  Even Father M's raucous satisfaction at the inclusion of his soccer-loving brother Gary couldn't quite compensate for such a tragic failure of imagination on our part!"

....and from the same venue Mike O'B in the victor's corner comments....

"This was an imaginative quiz especially the linked round.  It was better suited for conferring than for scoring twos.  A minor quibble was that some topics, e.g. football, went to the same person.  In our case Eveline copped for the football questions and everyone knows that there are things crawling around behind the cisterns in toilets that would have a better chance with football questions than Eveline.  We thought QotW was the one about the baby and the dying man symbol."

and from the Albert Club Tony's view....

"The quiz was indeed well constructed and interesting although occasionally the questions had to be repeated more than once.  The finer nuances at times defeated us.  We thought it was another Ethel typo when they wrote of an ex-Tory MP who had a 'present constituency'.  It was a cleverly and accurately worded question which we gave full credit to by nominating it as our QotW."

....and Anne-Marie's twopennyworth....

"Great quiz from Ethel but can someone please point out what the theme was for round 7. So hidden not even the question-setter knew!" (Ed: I was able to text Anne-Marie back with the theme to Round 7 - Opsimath Hilary finally unravelled it for us at the Fletcher Moss)

From the Griffin Kieran, in a slightly more cheerful mood this week, has this to say....

"Thoroughly enjoyable evening and a very good paper from Ethel.  Question of the week?  Buffy Sainte-Marie's seventh (!) album for the sheer weird randomness of it.  I got flak for having Chumbawumba's 11th album as a spare in a themed round a couple of year's ago but Buffy is right up there for oddness.  And I didn't include her in my Canadian singer/songwriter round a while back.  Can't think why not."

...whilst James, who both had a hand in setting the paper as well as QMing at The Griffin, rounds up this review with the following....

"So, as QM at The Griffin - and excluding scrutiny of my own rounds (1 & 2) due to my obvious lack of objectivity - I thought the quiz went down pretty well. 'Tony GREG Spiller's' connected answers round raised a number of smiles, as did the WithQuiz themed answers (also by Greg, I think).  The 'Michael Nyman' question fell to the Dunkers who, despite sitting opposite Rachel (who was flush with realisation and embarrassment), failed to twig what the connection was for that answer.  At half time things looked good for CMR with a 25-20 lead, and there was a great aggregate score with no unanswered questions up to that point.

However the second half's questions were a more traditional Ethel offering and CMR suffered (incidentally, Roddy had claimed during the compilation process that the later rounds would be 'a lot easier' than Rounds 1 & 2).  DD clawed back the deficit and some 'unanswereds' started creeping in.  I think I'd have been a bit peeved if I'd been playing, and going into round 8 we'd needed to score heavily.  There were 3 'unanswereds' in that round scuppering any remaining hopes of a catch up for CMR.  I'm not sure that that round was evenly matched, and I found the Buffy Saint-Marie question to be out on its own for sheer incongruousness.  Seventh album!?  Maybe one or two other clues to the answer might have helped.  Still we had fun reading her colourful Wikipedia entry after the match.  Calling her son Cody Starblanket Wolfchild in the mid 1970s has to make her one of the pioneers of celebrity offspring psychonomenclature!

As regards QotW?  My own favourite pairing were the symbols questions in Round 6.  Oh, and I'm glad Roddy had told me before the match what the (pretty good) hidden theme was in Round 7, because it also seemed to remain hidden from the question paper!"

The question mentioned by most of you in despatches was Round 6 Question 7:

Which well-known logo designed in 1958 is described by its inventor as: "A composite of symbols representing an unborn baby and a dying man along with the semaphore symbols for two letters"?